On Quaint Bible Words and Phrases

1924

The Cheerful Philosopher
XVII.

QUAINT BIBLE WORDS AND PHRASES

We learn so many new words every year that it is not surprising a few of the old ones drop out of use, but when the diction of the Bible becomes archaic we have lost something not easily regained.

The Authorized Version is a classic. It stands today as the finest example of literary style — terse, virile, picturesque, eloquent, a model for all time. The work of scholars in giving us a "Bible in Modern Speech," though of great value in many ways, is no excuse for ignorance on the part of those who are supposed to be educated. No one has yet attempted to re-write Shakespeare; we feel that he is worth knowing in the original, and the same is true of the Bible. The beauty of its wording is beyond comparison.

Our mother tongue was at its best when the James translators did their work. The English of that era seems specially adapted to convey the noble thought and the heroic drama of the book. These writers caught the spirit of prophet, poet and historian. At times, indeed, they went too far in their enthusiasm, for they did delight in using strong words. They reveled in turning such a sentence as "Hell is never full" (Prov. 23:14), not knowing or not caring to know that "Sheol" is more exactly given as "the grave," but for sheer power of expression they are unequaled, and the R.V., "Sheol is never satisfied," has nothing in it to impress the mind. The spirit of the verse is lost in literal accuracy.

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An exhaustive search of several hundred pages of Concordance showed me that only a few Bible words have actually passed from use. Much of the archaic effect comes from the old verb-endings "-eth" and "-est," with irregular forms such as "holpen" ("helped"), "strake" ("did strike"), "wist," "wit" and "wot" (from "witan," to know); from the use of the pronouns "thou," "thine" and "thee," and from certain unfamiliar prefixes in compounds, as "afore," "aforetime." Two or three words have so changed their meaning as to have become obsolete. We no longer use "let" in the sense of "hinder," or "prevent" in the sense of "go before to help." Other words have slightly changed their form — I have known folks puzzled by "shew"; — and among these is "knop," a quaint old spelling of "knob." (A "knop" was the bud of a flower, and so a piece of wood carved to represent a bud. Our modern door-knobs seldom have such beauty.)

One of the queer lost words is "mincing" ("walking with very short strides, affectedly elegant"). Perhaps our modern girls no longer mince as did the daughters of Judah reproved by Isaiah, who also charges them with wearing "round tires like moons" (not on their automobiles, though in the same passage the prophet complains of their chains, hoods, bonnets and mufflers).

The Society of Friends did well to preserve the use of "thee" and "thou" — still to be heard also in many parts of England. We have lost something by making "you" do double duty, and we might at least follow the French in keeping the singular form for intimate speech, Nathan's accusation of David, "THOU are the man!" has the right ring to it. (I have heard a preacher compare that "thou" to the roar of a 110-ton gun.) There is something, too, to be said, for "yea" and "nay." If we are too lazy to sound the final consonant of "yes" we might 'let our yea be yea" — and not "yep"!

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It is not so much old words as old turns of speech that we have lost. What short, strong words they used in these! "Take heed," "not a jot," "give place," "every whit," "howbeit," "took to wife," "we cannot gainsay it." Note the use of "or ever" in "The lions brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den." And what could be more emphatic than this: "He hath set to his seal that God is true"? We have lost that lively little saying, "Go to!" — the briefest, tersest phrase, I suppose, in the English tongue. Men who have served in the trenches know the force of "Stand to!" It means, "Stand in your place, alert, prepared, ready for action," and "Go to" is just as good in its way. A country preacher once was sadly puzzled by those two little words. He read them twice — "Go to—, go to—," and then, rubbing his glasses, he remarked, "The Bible does not say where he was to go to. We must fill in the place for ourselves."

"Let us look one another in the face," said the king of Judah to the king of Israel, meaning, "Let us meet in battle." "Quit you like men!" was the war-cry of the Philistines. Men quit today in quite another sense.

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A word we do not often meet with now is "lovingkindness" — a beautiful compound, and one not likely to be altogether lost. "Charity," alas, has suffered a worse fate than disuse in being misused and degraded. The word has lost its fragrance, and although the spirit of charity finds expression almost everywhere, the place in our vocabulary has not been filled. I know no better substitute than "lovingkindness."

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Who was it who said that beer was never mentioned in the Bible? The word appears often, but always with a capital and usually in combination to form the names of places. We read, "From thence they went to Beer." "Beer" in the Bible signifies "a well of water." Adam's ale, of course! And I learnt, too, in making this study, that the word "Beulah" means "married," from which I gather that many folks who love to sing of Beulah Land are living there now and don't know it! "Woe worth the day!" (Ezekiel, 30:2).

—Manitoba Free Press, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, September 19, 1924, page 13.